What is the best class in Mass Effect?

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The Vanguard class is the best class

Not true. The easiest and (by far) the most powerful class in Mass Effect is a Soldier / Commando. With the right skills, it has 100%+ Immunity uptime with passive regeneration that outheals any damage you might receive, 100%+ Marksman uptime if you're with pistols (they are the best DPS at that point), and insane weapon damage bonuses. No other class can compare to it. For Mass Effect 2, it's more up to personal preference. Soldier gets a time-slow bundled with damage increase and damage protection, Infiltrator gets a stealth cloak, Vanguard gets a suicidal charge, and others get pretty much nothing special.

I agree with you, especially concerning ME1. I'm running Soldier now and after the first quarter or so of the game, it practically beats itself. You have to be a pretty bad aim to encounter anything more than cursory problems. Soldier:Pros: Great survivability and DPS. Highest DPS in the game along with Infiltrator. Cons: No Crowd control, have to rely on allies. No bonus ability synergises with class because no Omni tool or bio amp.

No crowd control? Equip the Soldier with a good machinegun, highest heat sink upgrades you can and train that ability. An unending continuous fire is an excellent crowd control (I know. I even killed all the Rachni that appears when you activate the purge, and with a lot of time to spare). Adept: Pros: Absolute best Crowd control in the game. Barrier Spec will pretty much never go down, Cons: Has to resort to Assault Rifles which aren't as good as Pistols. If Barrier is breached, can go down very quickly. Difficult in early game when cooldowns are a minute long.

Engineer: Pros: Synthetics are target practice: They can't swap weapons and Overload destroys their powerful shields. Hacking can give you a powerful ally, damping to deal with Biotics and Techs. Shields are phenomenomally large. Can access pistols without wasting points. Cons: No defensive skill makes Insanity very hard. A few lucky rockets and it's Game over. Has the greatest difficulty with charging Krogan.

Vanguard: Pros: CC almost matches Adepts and Pistol Rdamage almost matches Soldier/Infiltrator (17% boost vs 19%.) The Damage difference is moot unless you're facing powerful enemies, at which point your superior CC comes into play. AB resets all powers quickly. Cons: Extreme shortage of points means certain skills can't be maxed. This is worse than it sounds; you'll probably end up not maxing throw barrier and warp to sacrifice as little CC as possible, but that hampers your survivability and general effectiveness.

Infiltrator: Pros: my personal favourite, The Infiltrator has the same DPS as the Soldier but gains tech abilities too. with his class skill, he can fire the pistol throughout all of master marksman without it over heating if two scram rails are equipped. Tech abilities mirror the engineersif HAcking is taken with medicine cut to make way for snipers and immunity. Snipers can soften a position from afar and immunity gives the tech class some much needed survivability. If Liara and Wrex are taken, it can make up for not being adept or Vanguard, Cons: Krogan are still a pain. Biotics will destroy you as you can masx out damping. Tech range isn't as good as engineer's. Gameplay becomes very Methodical.

Can't comment on Sentinels I have played through ME1 with Soldier, Engineer, Adept, and Vanguard (I'm trying to do all 6 classes), and I have taken my engineer and my adept into ME2.

For ME1, my favorite has been the Vanguard. I must admit, the soldier is powerful, but playing as the soldier I quickly learned that I never needed the sniper rifle or assault rifle very much, relying on shotgun for close range (who wouldn't?) and pistol for mid/long range (early assault rifles are too innacurate and there aren't many places in the game where sniping is necessary). I would rather use up talents on biotic/tech abilities rather than waste them on weapons I never used. If you like assault rifles instead of pistols for mid range, I would recommend using it as a bonus talent for your adept or vanguard. Only differences between vanguard with assault rifles and a soldier is that vanguard cant use snipers or heavy armor, but he can use biotics. That, and they replace the soldiers immunity with biotic barrier, which can be take 1250 damage, as well as recharge your shield if you are a shock trooper. This, besides coming in handy when charging into the enemy with your shotgun, I like better than immunity, because that means I dont need to waste talent points on armor to get shield boost. My barrier does the shield boost for me, as well as providing a shield for my shield to give it time to recover fully. As a bonus, vanguard is the only class (except for giving a bonus biotic talent to a soldier) who can combine adrenaline rush (to instantly reset all power cooldowns) with multiple biotic abilities, allowing you to use all of your biotic powers (as well as weapon powers) in rapid succession. For ME2, I havent yet played the soldier, but I have watched some friends play as soldier, and again I must admit the soldier is pretty powerful, and pretty good at taking out collectors when combined with shredder/warp ammo or reave. My first ME2 playthrough as engineer was insanely hard (and I wasn't even playing on insanity). Collectors were impossible to kill, because all tech powers are useless against barrier. I needed to have both Jack (squad warp ammo) and Samara (area reave) with me everytime I fought Collectors to even stand a chance. On the other hand, playing ME2 as an Adept was some of the most fun I ever had. After I got to about level 15 or so, I never even needed to use a gun... never... Stay in cover and start hurling heavy warps and area reaves at enemies (the first of which, fully upgraded, will do like 250 damage to health, double damage to barrier, and recharge in less than 3 seconds... the latter of which sucks 40+ health per second for 4+ seconds, over like 3 meters radius, doing double damage instantly (all the damage it would have done over time, it does on contact instead) to both barrier and armor, and also recharges in less than 3 seconds). When you get to level 30, and you can start using singularities and/or pulls to tie up enemies while you hurl your warps and reaves, its even better.... plus, shockwave, throw, lift, and singularity will instantly kill any unarmored husks it contacts (yes, you are going to want throw field, pull field, wide singularity and improved shockwave, not heavys because radius is what matters here, not damage)... Can soldiers do that? I think not. So if you want to beat the game easy, and play thru like its just another shooter, then be a soldier. But if you want to beat the game easy and have some real fun, use biotics. If you play as a biotic, the only regret you will have, is that you are not an Asari Justicar, making your biotics that much more deadly.

Agreed.ME1 - Adept - after level 5 battles are childs play. The best amps are recharge and power because with warp and lift where you have duration the enemy is dead in like 3 seconds. I choose nemesis and with the lift spec and master lift I hardly need to fight. Also trow is the greatest destruction force in-game. Plus by mid-game your pistol is a death sentence even for a geth prime if you have a good cover. In ME2 it is all balanced though. ...Okay. The truth is that there is no single best class. Period. There is only a single best class that FITS THE PLAYER. I myself don't rely on the special powers that the Tech or Biotic classes offer. This makes the Soldier or the Soldier/Class hybrids ideal for me since the Soldier relys soley on their weapons. The power ablties enhance this somewhat but I don't use them as much. (And yet I can still burn through Insanity mode with no problems.) Other people may rely on heavy defence to soak their damage since they don't take cover as much. Vanguard is ideal for them. If they rely on the special abltities more than the weapons then depending on how they interperate the situtation or which class they decide they like better they can chose from there. I would suggest trying them all and find the one that best fits you. Remember that you can choose the squadmates that best cover your weaknessing making the overall unit a juggernaught which is how real life soldiers fight. I discovered on my Insanity playthrough that the Adept just can't inflict damage. Yeah he can swing enemies around, but unless there's a handy bottomless pit around, that doesn't do much for actually defeating them. I had Warp maxed, but didn't have Pistols maxed, so that may be why. I dislike the Soldier class for the exact reason it was stated to be the best: "I big Soljer! i shoot tings dey go boooooom!" Sure, if you want a class to just breeze through everything, fine, but there's not much fun in that for me. Although my Adept's lack of damage dealing (it was my very first character's new game+ so I had no bonus talents on it) makes me not want to vote for it, I think an Adept with AR bonus talent would probably be hot fire; not quite "the game beats itself" easy, but not the mind-numbing slog it was for me.

Yes, if you really feel the need for your Adept to dish out serious damage, giving him/her Shotguns or Assault Rifles as a bonus power should solve that problem. Or, if you want to one up the Adept, just be a Vanguard, who has only half of the Adept's biotic powers, but starts off with Shotguns, and Assault Training, which are both very useful. For one, shotguns dish out the most damage, short of ME2's heavy weapons, and this will free up your bonus power for something like Electronics (giving you insane shields, as well as the ability to destroy enemy shields). Then, combine that with the Shock Trooper, giving you Barrier specialization, allowing Barrier to recharge your shields, while also giving you protection from 1250 damage. Combine all of that with Assault Training (giving you Adrenaline Burst, which is a power that resets the recharge time on all of your powers) and you will basically be able to stand in the open with your shotgun, taking almost any kind of punishment, short of thresher maw attack, and wipe everything out yourself. What you can't kill in one hit with the Spectre 10 shotgun you can damage using Warp, Throw, Overload, and Carnage... the shotgun, which, of course, has a bunch of attachments that all increase accuracy to the point that you can almost snipe with it (and I am seriously not kidding around with that "almost")... "OH NO!... THERE'S TOO MANY ENEMIES!... AND MY BARRIER RAN OUT, I ALREADY USED ALL OF MY POWERS, AND NOW MY SHIELDS ARE GONE WHAT AM I GOING TO DO!..." Oh, wait a second. what is this? Adrenaline Burst? HELL YEAH IT'S ADRENALINE BURST! Now you got all your powers back (including medi-gel), a full barrier again, your shields are recharging, and that whole platoon of Krogan Battlemasters that was rushing toward you are now flying in the oposite direction, thanks to a quick Throw. And did I mention, that as a Shock Trooper, your Adrenaline Burst's recharge time is reduced by 25%? Oh yeah... Trust me, after playing ME1 like this, you will forget what cover is, because you will never have the need for it. To be honest in ME1 my favourite was the Soldier but when i started to play ME2 I quickly realised that the Sentinel had a major power boost and was almost unbeatable, making even multiple Krogans an easy job for me! Imo, the Adept class is the best, singluarity followed by throw pawns everything. Killed saren/soveriegn first time using singularity/throw on insane difficulty, sure, at the beggining adepts suck but pile the xp points on Adept, warp, throw and singularity and you will be near impossible to kill. I recall playing a little of ME1 but the slow lifts made me quit.

Ive played ME2 once as an Infiltrator, and now I am about to play ME1 as an Infiltrator as well, (then go through ME2 to get ready for ME3 ^__^). I found myself sticking to the anti-material rifle in fallout new vegas, and so i took a class that could use those in ME2, and i havent regreted this for a second. Usually, i didnt run out of sniper ammo throughout entire missions, and only near the end the widow started to run out of ammo, then thane's mission gave me a sniper rifle with 60 bullets, which made the game a joke (like the regular sniper rifle from fallout new vegas with a ridiculous DPS). Incinerate is like showing the middle finger to armor and disruptor ammo is shield killing, so i was covered from every angle. Only hard time i had was against the final boss, which took 700 collector beam cells to kill + 12 sniper rifle bullets - turns out they are more effective on him than the collector beam. This talk confirmed my suspicion that Infiltrator is a good class, so im procceeding with my plan. cheers! "001"

DUH! Of course the collector beam sucks against the final-boss. If you had read the weapon's description you'd have seen that it sucks against armor, unlike snipers which kick ass against armor

Actually, the description misleadingly states that the beam is good against armor (while it's not).

The best class in the game is the one that best fits your playstyle of either 1) aggressive, 2) defensive, or 3) support which all classes are subjugated into. For instance, the soldier is essentially a walking tank that gives and takes a lot of damage but cannot really debuff enemies. The engineer is good for taking down shields, overheating weapons, and hack enemies to have another target for enemies to hit, but because he is limited to a pistol (unless you have advanced weapons training later in the game) you arent going to be killing things as fast. The Adept is extremely effective at reducing enemy strength by temporarily (or depending on the location; perminently) by lifting enemies off the ground and out of cover allowing you to stop chargers and prevent enemies from firing at you and your squad, but again you are limited to just you pistol for offense unless you take advanced training. Depending on your playstyle, you pick the best class for your approach. A basic catagory for which classes fall into.

Aggresive: Soldier: Since the soldier has access to all weapons and the highest health in the game, it is suited for this style since you have more close-mid range weapons than mid-long range, and the adrenaline power slows time to allow you to manuver faster and get in close to deal damage and force the enemy to give ground.

Vanguard: The vanguard is geared for close quarters combat, and is is extremely hindered the farther you stay back. His powers help to scatter groups of enemies so he can pick them off one by one using charge and shotguns, plus he regains shields and gain the 2X damage bonus when you charge an enemy giving you a good reason to make the fight up-close and personal.

Defensive: Adept: The adept is all about sitting back ensaring enemies either by pull or singularity and controling the masses so they do not overwhelm your squad. Pull, singularity and shockwave also pulls enemies out of cover so your squad can pick them off while they are helpless in the air or on the ground. With adepts, however you don't have the strongest shields nor the impressive weaponry for close combat, so you'll want to be in the back behind your squadmates helping them.

Infiltrator: Because this class is armed with a sniper rifle, your job is to pick enemies with the sniper montra of "one shot, one kill." The tactical cloak allows you to manuver the battlefield looking for the next advantagous spot of the battlefield preferably as far from enemies as possible, while also granting a damage boost at higher levels. Now while the cloak may seem to allow you to get up close and personal to destroy your enemies, you will only get 1-2 melees in before it disipates and exposed, and since you lack effective close range weapons, its better to pick enemies off and support allies with tech powers than use tactical cloak for close combat*.

^(*that is unless you take shogun proficiency instead of the widow. if plan to use the rapid sniper from thane's mission this is advisable when combined with assassin cloak. the damage bonus only applies to one shot, so it can be better to fully charge the geth shotgun from the DLC and blast from close range then use the recharge bonus to re-cloak and pick off someone else. the difficult part of this strategy is the limited duration of the assassin cloak, so i tend to get the armor with the sprint speed upgrade.)

Support: Engineer: The engineer, while only armed with a pistol, can be an extremely useful class. The drone you summon not only allows another target for the enemy to shoot at, but also forces enemies out of cover for your allies to pick off. Incinerate and overload are effective to reducing enemy buffs, cryo blast is effective for crowd control, and AI hacking acts like the drone.

Sentinal: The sentinal is the class for every situation, Warp and Overload will debuff all enemy protection, and cryo blast will stop hoards of enemies in their tracks for you squad to destroy. The special armor that you deploy not only protects you, but will knock down or stagger any enemy caught in its blast allowing you to thwart any rushing enemies long enough to find cover. again, your focus is to use your flexability in powers to debuff enemies quickly allowing squadmates to finish them with relative ease with their weapons or powers. Please note; these are not official, just speculative due to the classes armaments and powers which better support these roles. This does not mean that an infiltrator cannot be aggresive, but comparing early game powers and weapons an infiltrator will not be as effective as a soldier or vanguard for this kind of style.

MASS EFFECT 2 only:

Soldier - extremely tough thanks to increased and regenerating health, no proper powers - except the Concussive shot - but extreme loads of firepower that are enhanced through the right ammo types. It's not as fast a debuff as a proper power, but it can do, especially if you have the right teammates - and they are not down, which is way too often a case with the class. If you are a shooter fan rather than an RPG fan, look no further.

Infiltrator - "one shot, one kill". Or up to twelve, with the Viper. Still, the Widow is likely to be your best friend - with sufficient ammo reserve and extreme damage. The Viper usually can not kill the enemy during the class' best feature - the "bullet-time" period once you aim down the scope. The Tactical Cloak allows to move around and launch devastating attacks due to the "first clip" bonus. Disruptor Ammo makes terminators shiver in fear - and shock; Co ammo plus Viper can get you through any crowd of Husks, because it's often an instakill against them; Warp ammo covers the only weakness, the lack of anti-barrier powers, while AP ammo allows you to use krogans as target practice. When sniping is not an option, a buffed-up Tempest is still a deadly sidearm, and it's Achilles' heel, armor, is no match for Incineration. AI Hack is situational at best.

Vanguard - the best defence is a good offense. Biotic Charge + Scimitar + Incendiary or Warp Ammo = one dead mini-boss. If you lose your barrier (=shield for Vanguard and Adept), just use the Charge - it will recharge about half of it. Pretty good crowd control power, Pull can drag the bad guy into the open. Claymore might not be the right upgrade; an assault rifle can give you more stand-off capability.

Engineer - the support class. Has a power for anything but biotics. The Drone and AI hack provide confusion and flush the hostiles out of cover. Incinerate and Overload are the de-buffers. Cryo Blast will hold the line. An interesting upgraded combo is a Viper sniper rifle and a Lv1 Neural Shock. Stops them right in your sights. And keep in mind the research resource cost discount

SCIMITAR for a VANGUARD?! All shotguns are junk except GPS. Go figure. Vanguard with GPS is twice as deadly as the one with any other shotgun.

Firstly, not all might have the DLC with the Geth Pulse Shotgun - me included. Second, thanks for messing up my edit. Had to reinsert roughly thirty "enters", and still meesed it up badly.

^ Hmm, don't know what happened to your edit... I never touch other people's posts. If you don't have the GPS, don't play Vanguard... boring! :D Or use Eviscerator. Oh wait, that's another DLC... lol.

I agree completely. Vanguard is the weakest class in ME2 and without DLC shotguns essentially unplayable on insanity (Claymore comes to late to count when you play with a new character on insanity). Vanguard has NO powers against shields / barriers / armor, pull is the SECOND unlock and difficult to use agains enemies behind cover, and shockwave has a very long activation time while standing in the open which got me killed many a time (and its damage is laughable anyway). It is the only class without a handy power with 3s cooldown readily available (pull needs a lot of points to unlock). Its main ability - charge is very situational but is especially problematic when there is rocket spam (very common). Rockets will strip you of your shields/health within 1-2 seconds after charge AND will shock/stop you from running away exposing you to further damage while you stand helplessly in the open = EPIC FAIL. And again, and again ... Not to mention that charge is utterly nonsensical and does not fit in the universe of Mass Effect. Moving through solid objects? What are we talking about?

Played through Mass Effect 1 with the Infiltrator first, and none of the other classes have compared. You fight so many geth, that having the tech powers really makes it easy. You get mass amounts of sheilds from the electronics skill, and like others have said, with the Commando specialization you can run the constant marksman. Also if you up your sniper skill, infiltartor skill, and spectre skill, you are able to no scope snipe with the sniper rifle. Throw on the High explosive rounds with 2 rail extensions VII, you can one shot just about anything, even when behind cover. I played through the game with the soldier, and never felt as powerful as I did with the Infiltrator. I have only touched a bit with the adept, its fun, and tip with the vanguard, don't try and rush a krogan, but nothing I have tried was as good as the infiltrator.

For Mass Effect 2, I tried the infiltrator, and the powers were weak at best. I pretty much only used the cloak to cover myself while lining up a sniper shot. The only nice thing was that between the ammo, and incinerate, you could take care of the most common protection. If you ever do run up against synthetics (kinda rare except when you're fighting the geth), you can blow them out of the water, but once again, you don't fight them too much. In truth, I haven't found a class that I like the best in ME2 so far, but I feel like the infiltrator isn't the best option.

^ I'm playing Infiltrator now, and it's fun... but not as much fun as the Vanguard. Try it! :D

For mass effect 1 i pick the vanguard because a good shot gun is basicly and death ray on the Feros mission I

was 1 shotting enemies from across a room. plus biotics are AWESOME.

second would be the solder and then the adept. For ME2 the sentinal is amazing the soldier is good and so is the vanguard.\

I think it's safe to say that there is no "best class".

Yeah, the second-topmost post coupled with the several that follow kind of disprove themselves... :-)

As to the game beating itself, I was an Adept/Bastion (i.e., total sucker at DPS, comparatively - did the whole thing with a pistol with Marksman) who didn't use powers all that much (I'm not a lot of a shooter-game player, so I don't tend to do those combat tactics), and I had no problems whatsoever at my first playthrough of ME1 (only got killed a couple times till I learned to handle the game, later only in accidental cases of extreme player ineptitude, like standing around with that rachni swarm at the end of Noveria), upping the difficulty to the second level (whatever is it called?) barely made me see any difference - better gear mostly compensated. That said, I got killed maybe twice or thrice in the entire 50-hour playthrough. Compared to that, in ME2 I'm on Illium on "normal" dif now (to recruit Samara and do Miranda's loyalty), and 've been prone and cold a good couple o' times already.

And yeah, I did take my time getting to play ME2 - I thought my nigh-on-8-years-old computer can't handle it for sure, then I actually tried it and now I'm playing comfortable on mid-range video quality (namely, 8yo Athlon x64 3000+, 2 GB 400MHz memory (upgraded over the years from the original 512 MB), nVidia GF 7600GT (about 4 years old), and a newish backwards-compatible SATAII drive (I have what was a well-loaded motherboard back in the day, including then-cutting-edge SATA-I technology)).

Are we really having this conversation of "best"? If this isn't a forum topic...

There is NO "best" class, but I prefer Vanguard.

The best I'd say (Shepardspectre) would be the Sentinal. I'm playing on soldier now, with only 1 biotic power, and it sucks SOOOO much compared to my playthrough with Sentinal. I lived twice as long with Sentinal, and I beat the game within 24 hours on Insanity with my shield maxed out! But the thing is, I chose the shotgun training, but I still got through it, it took me 15 minutes to beat the Human-Reaper. Sentinal armory: Sub-Machine Gun, Heavy pistol, and (my playthrough) shotgun. You have a one time only choice to pick; Shotgun, Sniper Rifle, or Assault Rifle training. Best bet against Human-Reaper larva is the Sniper. It has ONLY armor protecting it, and quite a few 'Weak Spots'. Hope it helped!

Weird how people can classify some of these classes as best ^_^. I'd say the one class is best which you find most fun to play. ME1 and ME2 are single player games and therefore it doesn't really matter if you play with a powerful protagonist or not. Dogmatix314 06:57, October 27, 2011 (UTC)

The Vanguard, because they are almost unstoppable and everything flows alot better. NegativeCreep 08:10, October 30, 2011 (UTC)

I found soldier the easiest on Insanity, just make sure to upgrade wepoaons fully or atleast almost fully. K1LLERAnish 11:35, October 30, 2011 (UTC)

I found the sentinel class my favorite because it utilizes all sorts of powers and has a different gameplay feel to it. If you are really good with the sentinel, you can become a defensive powerhouse in both ME1 and ME2 but I still agree with what most of you say. The soldier makes all the missions really easy.

For some reason, im not really a big fan of biotics. In Mass Effect, they, well...look at the class on the character creation screen and you might see why. I hear they are pretty powerful though. My favorite classes are definately soldier and infiltrator. In Mass Effect 1, infiltrators are a combination of being able to open stuff and being able to do good damage. In Mass Effect 2, they can do good single-target damage, and have some unique abilities. While the cloak in the second game has its uses, I never really used it much until my second playthrough with the class, when the difficulty was harder, and in arrival. Frankly, for a first playthrough, I recommend heading straight to soldier, to see what weapons you like, and once you get a feel for the weapons, on your second playthrough, choose whichever you like. Pkthis 17:11, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

Mass Effect 1? Soldier. Mass Effect 2? Adept. It's best to go for pure classes based on your preferance and so you don't struggle to balance the point disribution out. Adept in ME1 is absolutely crap but gets it's act together in ME2. FACT: you can beat all the bosses with warp. Surely that is the best reason to be an Adept in ME2?

Personally i like soldier it's well rounded along with collector armor and a good colectors assault rifle gps also the widow and the first pistol you get its deadly exspecially the time dialtion in insanity with widow

_ I don't think there is a best class. Each one has its pros and cons. For example, I played a soldier as a first character in both ME1 and ME2. Easy to handle, really simple tactics but it's damn too simple once you know the game, even on insane (no challenge). Dracian ME 20:25, January 20, 2012 (UTC)

Like many people said, there isn't a best class, only the one that fits the player best. Easiest? Soldier. The most fun? To me, Vanguard, mainly in ME2 (against Vasir using Charge is child's play). I don't recommend playing Sentinel or Engineer in the highest difficulty settings because it's very easy to die (mainly in ME1, you have to rely much on powers and they take TOO long to reload).

^The vanguard is terrible in ME-2 on Insanity. You just DIE. K1LLERAnish 09:46, January 11, 2012 (UTC)

K1LLERAnish is right about the Vanguard. They should have made not only a "Jump-in-Assault", but also a "Jump-out-ability"! GfmWeiss 09:49, January 11, 2012 (UTC)

Everyone's right when they say that Vanguard's an unusually hard class on higher difficulties, but I've played through as one on Insanity, and when you choreograph your jumps right, it'll end a fight quicker than any other class (and you'll have a blast doing it). And if you choreograph your jumps wrong you'll die nonstop. Despite its reputation as the most aggressive, impulsive class, lots of pauses and careful planning definitely help.

For ME1 it's the Infiltrator with KI-Hacking as bonuspower, simply for the fact that you face loads of synthetic enemies, that are at your mercy as soon as you spam your tech abilities, should some survive the sniping. Against organics you can still disable them with Sabotage, Overload takes down all but the strongest barriers and Damping makes most biotic users targetpractice; unfortunally the Infiltrator is not as much fun in ME2, at least for me. In ME2 my favorite and thereby best class is the Vanguard, with Heavy Reave as bonus power. Unlike ME1 you fight more organic adversaries in ME2, so Inferno Ammo is pretty nice. I haven't used Cryo-Ammo much to get other powers. Shockwave causes mayhem on the battlefield against any unprotected enemies, Pull (rank 1) is all you need to pick specific targets out of cover and Reave makes up for the lack of directly damaging powers versus tougher opponents. And at long last the juwel of this classes powers: Charge! I understand that Charge is a very riscky skill to use, but the potential gain more than outweights the risks IMO. You can pick a far of pack of enemies and simply charge them, one down/incapictated from the Charge, dispose of the rest (shouldn't be more then 1-2) and you've changed the layout of the battlefield in a way that you can now perform a pincer-attack on the rest, this possibility is unique to the Vanguard. Plus Charge also recharges your shields and gives up to 100% extra shield for as long as the cooldown takes and can also be used to escape sticky situations. Yes the Vanguard lacks skills against shields, but that's what you have squadmembers for...Tanis84 01:54, January 12, 2012 (UTC)

^ The problem with the squad members is, that they sometimes can't follow a charging Vanguard. Let's take Haestrom on hardcore as example. I charged in to that dam Colossus and started attacking him from cover with my eviscerator, what was very, very, very easy. But when Zaeed (Squad Disruptor Ammo) and Garrus tryed to close up, they were slaughtered by the remaining geth. In some situations you can't rely on your squad mates, not even a little bit. Sometimes, a Vanguard has to do the work alone, as this is what the charge-ability was made for (IMO). And when you do so, you need a good strategy, skill and luck. If you have them all, you go fine with the Vanguard. But my playthroughs gave me the feeling, that a soldier with a mattock and a viper has less trouble to get the job done. My opinion. GfmWeiss 06:52, January 12, 2012 (UTC)

A Soldier with halfway decent aim and rank 4 Adrenaline Rush can get through ME2 on Insanity with remarkable ease, especially if you're savvy enough to understand some of the inner mechanics of the game (e.g., this type of weapon and this type of ammo are good for this type of protection, etc.). I should know; that has been my experience making my way through my first Insanity playthrough right now. The only missions that have given me some challenge are the "tentpole" ones (Horizon, the Collector Cruiser and the Derelict Reaper) and Garrus' recruitment mission (because you have to fight a truly obscene amount of enemies on that one and you may be down one squadmate through a long portion of it). Almost everything else just breezes by.

It all depends on what playstyle you like best:

Soldier: Uses ammo powers but does not utilise tech or biotic abilities so it is perfect for people who effectively like it to be a shooter.

Adept: Completely biotic and a lack of a range of weapons means it is perfect for those who arent too fond of guns in RPGs.

Infiltrator: Uses ammo powers and also has tech abilities and also ables you to use sniper rifles which is perfect for people who like like to time their shot.

Engineer: Fully tech based and with the inclusion of combat drone, you can actually afford to hide while the drone helps to take out enemies. Only really helpful in the lower difficulties.

Vanguard:Like close combat? Then vanguard is for you. With a shotgun and the charge power you can close up and shoot them point blank in the face.

Sentinel: The tank. Tech Armour means that you can replenish your shields whenever you want. With this you dont need to hide as much and can stay in the thick of battle longer.

I'd say that matches as short guide. GfmWeiss 11:12, January 12, 2012 (UTC)

File:Soldier.jpgI like the soldier, it's simple, I get to focus on the story and can use or get access to every weapon in both ME and ME2.

I prefer adept or engineer as I have an urge spent from completing 3 playthroughs of ME2 as classes that revolve around using powers not weapons. I like playing as an adept or engineer but strangely not as a sentinel (I never used Tech armour) it is usually down to your playing style.

What about seperate types of one class? For example, I think that there are different ways to play as an adept. I used Warp as a main power in one playthrough but shockwave as a similar damage dealer. You can also play a force power style, eradicating shields before using a combo of pull and throw along with biotic mastery to catapult enemies away from you, taking advantage of the anti-grav momentum boost. It can be done with engineer to. You can hide in cover using passive powers like Combat drone or AI hacking to wreck havoc whilst getting your squadmates to clean up or you can use powers like Incinerate and Cryo Blast to assault enemies directly. What's best about mass effect is that there is no right or wrong answer.

if we're talking ME1 I would definatly have to say Adept with the sniper rifle bonus power. Max out your sniper max out all your powers except stasis (only need 6 in stasis) become a bastion and max that out and max spectre training. don't put any points into pistol or armor. if you want to make it really good put 2 rail extension VII on your sniper with HE X ammo. There really is nothing quite like getting into a battle on an outside map using lift on an enemy following that up with throw and then sniping that dude with your sniper cannon. if the enemy is using immunity at the time and you are playing insanity (which you should always do :P) then the enemy may survive the fall in which case you get to hop in the Mako and drive to see where they landed :) on a serious note though this combination of character with 2 rail VII and Tungsten VII on the sniper can very easily take out any of the big geth on foot without help from your squad mates. use some Shredder VII on thresher Maws. Basically warp + (lift, singularity, stasis, throw depending on the situation) + sniper + Assasination = sympathy for whatever tries to fight you.24.231.91.62 01:51, January 17, 2012 (UTC)

Infiltrator (ME2) made Insanity a cakewalk for me. Vanguard and Soldier will be tie for 2nd.

It really depends on your playing style. Because of this, any class can really be the most powerful. In Mass Effect 1, the game does seem to be a little biased towards Soldiers, but this changed in Mass Effect 2, with the focus going to the Sentinal and Vanguard classes. Personally I choose the Soldier, for the sheer amount of damage you can cause and the variety of weapons. If, say, you are looking for the most 1 shot 1 kill damage, go with Infiltrator, Assassin specialty, Assassination Cloak, and Shredder Ammo. Kills every time. ---Sgt_Ginger

See, on this matter I found Soldiers best on both games. Their superior firepower nails any enemy that dares show its face, and anything moving can be slowed down so much you've seen moss grow faster so you can click their head into a sniper's sight. Though when it comes to enjoyability. I like the vangard. Fun, fast paced, not too easy but overall a good play.

My Personal best class was the Adept because messing around with my enemies but I soon came to like the Engineer, The fact was the engineer was suited to all type of enemies. You could get rid of sheilds quickly and armor plus you can hid while a turret gun and combat drone do all the work!

Yeah, I think at this point we've established that its really just what feels right to you. I think Soldier is good for learning the game basics. I tried Vanguard after that, which is really fun but I also died ALOT. My personal favorite now is Sentinel. Its easy to use and works well in battle. But especially in ME3 its a matter of personal preference now that you can pick whatever weapon specialty you like.

^Sentinelis the best. It has Biotic and Engineer powers, coolest looking melee, Tech Armor-I rarely need Medigel or loose health, and is useful with weapons.

The conclusion I've come to is that I can play as every class, but certain classes I have more fun (like Vanguard) but die more often, whereas certain classes I might be somewhat bored with but I'm stronger in (like Sentinel). A lot of it is personal skill though. For some reason I'm terrible at Infiltrator, and I seem to be just about the only one out there. Engineer is growing on me too.

Ok, let me weigh in... For ME1 thebest classes are Soldier, VG, and Infiltrator. For ME2 Soldier wins hands down followed by VG. But things get really interesting in ME3 and the Engineer and Sentinel come to the front and really outshine over the rest. IMO that is. Byrdology

It depends on your personal viewpoint... I'd say Vanguard then Infiltrator are the best classes... But I have a friend who plays Sentinel, which I think is the worst class. (Only looking at ME1 here, I have only played Vanguard and Infiltrator on ME2/ME3, so I cannot give proper opinions on them.)

Solider: High Health, High Damage Output, you can forget about your powers pretty much. This class is by far the easiest to play, as you can tank everything. I'd recommend it for the first time playing (So you unlock Assault Rifle Proficency...) The major drawback? It doesn't give you the feel of the game.

Vanguard: Moderately High Health, High Damage Output. You have powers, and they work well. In fact, endgame on my favourite playthrough, I had something like 1250 barrier stength in addition to high shields (Only added in Shield Modulators... Personal preference.). Fun to play, and if you have the AR proficency, you're playing a Soldier... Except with a little extra Biotic talent added on.

Infiltrator: The opposite of a Vanguard, yet the same. Instead of being close up, you're far away. Aside from the range difference, it's the same game. AR proficency still helps you play ar medium-close ranges, giving you the Soldier feel when you need it... But instead of being able to rush, you snipe instead. Interesting gameplay.

The specialists: Low damage output is annoying for me. When I played through with those two, I did speedruns because it did not feel as good as Vanguard or Infiltrator... Aside from the Adept, who I liked to play as but not as much as the Vanguard. Liara and Tali cover the advantages of these two...

Sentinel: Low damage output, no real profession in any area. The only time I did not even finish the storyline due to not really wanting to.

I'd say play what you like. Vanguard and Infiltrator show the best aspects of the game, Soldier is easiest, Adept and Engineer play very differently and Sentinel is odd... Of course, in ME2 and ME3, there are some major differences... I still still with Vanguard/Infiltrator though. VERY fun. ~ Kyoko

As a soldier I could take more damage by the end of the game than the mako without having anything but shield boost. Chamberlain

I guess the number of very different replies to the question indicates that there is no "best class" - that will always depend on the players style, his/her preferences etc. The best way to find out is to try out for yourself. I was playing ME1 and ME2 as a Soldier, in ME2 I started slowly to use the Sentinel class and now in ME3 I was playing only as Sentinel until now as this class fits my playing style the best. The Sentinel is good for me as he has both Tech and Biotic abilities, so you don't depend that much on your squadmates' powers, plus the Tech Armor is a great advantage both in a defensive and an offensive way to protect you and deal with your enemies. Simi21

Dammit use that four hyphens :D The signature/username is the almost the same color as the background, can't easily identify where your answers end and begin.

For me, in story mode/single player, the best class is Infiltrator since I am actually playing a lot of sniper games. The Tactical Cloak is quite a freebie, not really necessary unless you need to camp.

However, the high risk, high reward mechanic of Vanguard sounds cool. I've been trying it for a while now and I guess it's better not to bring more than a shotgun (or +SMG with ultra-light mod) to have a higher power recharge speed. The Charge->Nova spam helps, though I have only played until Hardcore. So far I always exhaust my medi-gel, not really gaining exp from them.

The only problem I have, though, is how to time in my Charge->Nova combo without dropping my shields. Enemies at Hardcore/Insanity tend to be more resilient, and they scatter/move faster so clustering them in will be quite a challenge. Needed to reset powers to see if Radius upgrades are better than Power Damage upgrades.

Oh, and I just remembered, since I'm complete with story mode DLCs, my Infiltrator!Shepard got to level 60 at just around Priority: Rannoch (imported from a lv30 ME2 playthrough; DLC: Leviathan, Omega done) and got no more exp.